CELLARS AND DUG-OUTS ON THE WESTERN FRONT
My son, who is somewhere in France, tells me what
a great comfort your Y.M.C.A. has been to him from
the time he started his training at ---- and all
through his stopping-places almost up to the
trenches.
UNLESS one has seen for oneself the ravages of war, it is impossible to
conceive the horror and desolation of a place like Ypres. Before the war
it was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, to-day it is nothing
more than a heap of ruins. It is enough to make even the most
unemotional of men cry, to stand in that once beautiful Cloth Hall
Square and see how complete is the destruction--not one house, not a
single room left intact--everything destroyed beyond recognition. And
what of the Y.M.C.A. in Ypres? There we found the Red Triangle standing
erect amid the ruins, and following the hand that pointed down we came
to a little cellar Y.M.C.A.--only a cellar and yet it had been a source
of helpfulness and inspiration to tens of thousands of our brave men. It
was wonderfully fitted up, contained a small circulating library, piano,
and everything needed for the canteen side of things. Not only that, it
was a centre to work from. Between the cellar and the enemy were nine
dug-outs at advanced stations. As these were all evacuated by order of
the Military during the German offensive in April 1918, there can be no
objection to their location being indicated. The first consisted of a
ruined house and a Nissen hut at the Asylum; the second was at
'Salvation Corner,' and the third at Dead End, on the Canal bank. There
was a Y.M.C.A. at Wells Cross Roads, another at St. Jean and Wiel, and
a sixth at Potyze Château. The seventh had a homely ring about it, for
it was situated at 'Oxford Circus,' the eighth was at St. Julien, the
ninth at Lille Gate (Ypres), and the tenth was the cellar Y.M.C.A. at
the corner of Lille Road referred to above. For many months it was the
centre of the social life of the stricken town, but in August 1917 it
received a direct hit from an enemy shell, and was knocked in. This
dug-out work is intensely interesting, though naturally it has its
limitations. Large meetings are, of course, impossible; sometimes even
the singing of a hymn would be sufficient to attract the attention of
Fritz, but the man who is resourceful and courageous, and who can see an
opportunity for Christian service in meeting the common everyday needs
of men, will find endless opportunities of putting in a word for the
Master--and the sordid dug-out under shell-fire, can easily be
transformed into a temple to His praise, an inquiry-room where
resolutions are made that change the lives of men, and help the soldier
to realise that he is called to be a crusader.
[Illustration: CANADIAN Y.M.C.A. DUG-OUT IN A MINE CRATER ON VIMY RIDGE,
1917]
[Illustration: A CANADIAN Y.M.C.A. DUG-OUT NEAR VIMY RIDGE]
In the Red Triangle dug-outs of the Ypres salient, from three to four
thousand bloaters were supplied to the troops week by week; 1500 kilos
of apples, and more than 100,000 eggs! It was a miracle how these latter
were collected in the villages behind the line. Corps provided a lorry
and two drivers for five months to bring them into Ypres, and also
assisted us with thirty orderlies. It was that timely help that made our
work possible. It would be difficult to overestimate the boon to the
troops of this variety to their diet. Iron rations will keep body and
soul together, but it is the little extra that helps so much in keeping
up the health and spirits of the men. They would follow the egg lorry
for a mile and gladly pay the threepence each that the eggs cost. In
February 1918, the turnover from the Red Triangle centres round Ypres
amounted to 245,000 francs, whilst in March it had risen to 260,000. For
many weeks in this salient we gave away from five to six thousand
gallons of hot drinks each week. All honour to the band of Y.M.C.A.
leaders who kept the Red Triangle flag flying under these difficult
conditions. For six weeks one of our leaders was unable to leave his
cellar home, owing to the incessant shelling and bombing of the
immediate vicinity. These were men who 'counted not their own lives dear
unto them,' but were ready to take any risk and to put up with any
personal inconvenience that they might serve the country they
loved--yes, and they too endured 'as seeing Him Who is invisible.'
The King, who is the patron of the Y.M.C.A., and very keenly interested
in the work, visited our tiny centre at Messines. The dug-out at
Wytschaete was knocked out, and the Red Triangle cellar at Meroc, just
behind Loos, destroyed by a direct hit. The latter was approached by a
long communication trench, and was fitted up in the ordinary way--a few
tables and chairs, reading and writing materials, games, pictures on the
walls, and, of course, the inevitable and always appreciated piano. A
few days before we were there a dud shell from one of the German
'heavies' fell only two or three yards in front of the divisional
secretary's car. The cellar was immediately under a ruined _brasserie_,
and in the grounds of the latter was a solitary German grave. The story
goes that in the early days of the war enemy patrols passed through
Meroc, and a shot alleged to have been fired from a window of the
_brasserie_ found its billet in one of the Huns. In revenge, the
Germans killed every man, woman, and child in the _brasserie_. In
striking contrast was the story told us by the matron of one of our
British hospitals: 'Every one in this ward is desperately wounded, and
too ill to travel. All in that row,' said she, pointing, 'are Germans.
Yesterday a man occupying one of those beds lay dying, and could not
make his head comfortable. I went into the next ward, and said to the
Tommies "There's a German dying, will one of you lend him your pillow?"
Without a moment's hesitation,' said she, 'every one of those
dangerously wounded Britishers whipped out his pillow to help his dying
enemy.' That is the spirit of our men, and that accounts, quite as much
as their valour, for the fact that they have won the respect even of an
enemy trained from infancy to regard the British soldier as an object of
scorn and derision.